Showing results by narrator "Paul Heitsch" in All Categories

In The Scourge of War, preeminent military historian Brian Holden Reid offers a deeply researched life-and-times account of William Tecumseh Sherman. By examining his childhood and education, his business ventures in California, his antebellum leadership of a military college in Louisiana, and numerous career false starts, Holden Reid shows how unlikely his exceptional Civil War career would seem.

Humans - there's no understanding them, and no dealing with them either. Or even their planet. Pity the poor aliens, whose shape-changing ability should let them take over the planet Earth before the humans even know they're there - if it weren't for all that omnipresent pollution. Or consider another set of invaders, from a planet where the weather is always mild and the changing of the seasons is hardly noticeable. They land in force; their weapons more powerful than those of the primitive humans, but they've never had to deal with below-zero temperatures, flash floods, or tornadoes.

For decades, a secret army of tax attorneys, accountants, and wealth managers has been developing into the shadowy Wealth Defense Industry. These "agents of inequality" are paid millions to hide trillions for the richest 0.01 percent.

How much specialized training must a world-class athlete put in before they reach that coveted top step, hear their country's national anthem played, and receive the gold medal? The answer varies by country and by specialty...but it is always measured in years and sometimes even in decades.

Sailing the Caribbean is every yacht owner's dream. Azure waters, golden sunshine, and warm winds greet sailors in every port. But that dream is shattered when one boat returns from a race without its captain. The story is that the skipper fell overboard, but the clues point to something much more sinister, and one of the crew is arrested. And that crew member happens to be a friend of Miami Jones.

China's foreign policy initiatives, even the vaunted "Belt and Road", will be shaped and redefined as they confront the ground realities of local and regional politics outside China. In China's Western Horizon, Daniel S. Markey, a scholar of international relations and former member of the US State Department's policy planning staff, previews how China's efforts are likely to play out across the swath of Eurasia that includes South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Drawing from extensive interviews and historical research, Markey describes how perceptions of China vary.

By 2016, it was impossible to ignore an international resurgence of xenophobia. What had happened? Looking for clues, psychiatrist and historian George Makari started out in search of the idea's origins. To his astonishment, he discovered an unfolding series of never-told stories. While a fear and hatred of strangers may be ancient, he found that the notion of a dangerous bias called 'xenophobia' arose not so long ago.

Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, as one judge described her, as "a coldly calculated criminal recidivist and serial killer." She had experienced a lifetime of murder, mayhem, and mental illness. She killed two boyfriends, including one whose body was stuffed in a freezer. And she was convicted in one of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's strangest cases: the Pizza Bomber case, in which a pizza deliveryman died when a bomb locked to his neck exploded after he robbed a bank in 2003 near Erie, Pennsylvania, Diehl-Armstrong's hometown.

The project sponsor/executive/director is essential for any project, as this person is in charge and ultimately accountable for its success (or lack thereof). However, he or she is rarely trained in project management; rather they are likely to be a general manager or senior executive. Michiel van der Molen seeks to help these accidental project overseers understand their role and responsibilities, guiding them to proactively take control of the project.

You are US Army military intelligence trainee David Dengler. Following army MI protocol, you are sent on a training exercise to a city you've never visited before and ordered to surveil a public person ("public persons" having little recourse if their privacy is invaded). You can't believe your good fortune. You draw the assignment to surveil Marilyn Monroe. It is early August 1962, and you have just been made a witness to the murder of Hollywood's biggest star.

Though largely forgotten today, one of the most destructive terrorist groups in the United States was the Galleanists, a fiery band of Italian anarchists active during the early 1900s. In America's Forgotten Terrorists, Jeffrey D. Simon shows how alienation and frustration among segments of a community were transformed into a militant extremist movement. The Galleanists introduced terrorist tactics and strategies that are still used today: they were the first group to send package bombs across the country and to exploit the media for their own advantage.

With a historian's eye and a theorist's ingenuity, Michael Doyle, whose writings on liberal peace have revolutionized modern statesmanship, cogently assesses the tectonic shifts threatening a global order that has held for more than seventy years. As tensions among China, Russia, and the US escalate perilously toward a new Cold War, Doyle introduces a radical paradigm that will facilitate the international cooperation necessary to avert the global threats of our time.

Kim Kristensen has been in some of the most demanding situations a leader can experience. As an officer he led soldiers into battle many times, where making decisions was literally a matter of life and death. Later he applied his experiences of leadership to the worlds of business, local government, and diplomacy as well as at the Danish royal house, where he currently serves as master of ceremonies.

For centuries, skeptical foreigners - and even millions of Americans - have believed there was no such thing as American cuisine. In recent decades, hamburgers, hot dogs, and pizza have been thought to define the nation's palate. Not so, says food historian Paul Freedman, who demonstrates that there is an exuberant and diverse, if not always coherent, American cuisine that reflects the history of the nation itself.

Frans Hals was one of the greatest portrait painters in history, and his style transformed ideas and expectations about what portraiture can do and what a painting should look like. Hals was a member of the great trifecta of Dutch Baroque painters alongside Rembrandt and Vermeer, and he was the portraitist of choice in the Dutch Golden Age. Steven Nadler gives us the first full-length biography of Hals in many years and offers a view into seventeenth-century Haarlem and this culturally rich era of the Dutch Republic.

After receiving information that a secret meeting was being held by top Krod officials in the city of Borneo, the UPMC organizes a joint raid to capture them using UPMC soldiers and Task Force Rangers. Though everything goes according to plan at first, the Krod army is waiting for them at every turn.

After an attempt by the UPMC to rescue Dr. Dunby fails, there is little hope that she will ever be rescued. Feeling that they failed in their mission at the Battle of Delpha to protect Dr. Dunby, Thomas and Black Squad set out on their own mission. They’ll bring back Dunby or die trying. Finding Dunby in a remote area of Krod, next to a military base, Black Squad’s odds of returning with the doctor diminish with every minute they’re on the enemy planet.

In One Last Song, Ayers invites thirty musicians to consider what song they would each want to accompany them to those pearly white gates. Weaving together their explanations with evocative illustrations and poignant interludes-what your song to die to says about you, what songs famous people have died to, and more. The book offers insight into the minds of famous artists and provides an entry point for considering how integral music is to our own personal narratives.

In Washington's Heir, Gerard N. Magliocca gives us the first published biography of Bushrod Washington, one of the most underrated Founding Fathers. Born in 1762, Justice Washington fought in the Revolutionary War, served in Virginia's ratifying convention for the Constitution, and was Chief Justice John Marshall's partner in establishing the authority of the Supreme Court.

In this landmark collection, William T. Vollmann offers a kaleidoscopic retrospective of the visual artwork he has produced over four decades, with new commentary from Vollmann on his process, inspiration, and the many intersections with his writing.